ASX 200 establishes new high

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The Australian sharemarket closed at a record high for the third straight day yesterday buoyed by announcements from Telstra and NAB while mining stocks gained on stronger commodity prices.

The benchmark ASX200 index gained 26.8 points to close at 3554.5 while the All Ordinaries index was 24.1 points stronger at 3547.4.

The ASX200 hit a new high of 3556.3 during the day's trading and the All Ordinaries registered an intra-day record of 3549.

Telstra gained 22c to $5.02 in heavy trading after announcing it would return an extra $1.5 billion to shareholders each year for the next three years. The stock traded as high as $5.04.

"Someone's finally slapped a bit of sense into the management committee and I wonder if it's the board," said Brian Ingham, managing director of Matrix Asset Management. "I think the board's been responding better to shareholder concerns."

National Australia Bank gained 45c to $29.74 after announcing Wesfarmers chief executive, Michael Chaney, will become chairman in September 2005.

Resources had had a revival in the past month, Mr Ingham said, after "being hammered" because of doubts about Chinese growth and US interest rate.

"Those concerns seem to have been overcome over the past month or so," he said. "The market has shown some life in particular over the past two [trading] days with the release of nickel inventories," which he said had caused a spike in nickel prices by as much as 18 per cent.

Miners BHP Billiton jumped 16c to $12.48 and WMC Resources was up 7c to $4.99, continuing a rally that has pushed the stock up 8 per cent in a week.

Buka Minerals was up another 3.5c to 43c after transferring its Lady Annie copper resource for cash and shares to Avon Resources, which is nudging 3c.

Gold stocks were also higher. Newcrest fell 8c to $13.70 having traded at 15-year highs during the day while Lihir gained 3c to 97c.

Woodside hit a record high, gaining 34c to $17.30 on a firming oil price.

Elsewhere, general insurer IAG gained 14c or 3 per cent to $5.15 and Westpac Bank gained 34c or 2 per cent to $17.62 on the completion of their respective buybacks, with traders saying institutional investors were among the buyers repositioning after selling stock in the buyback.

Casino operator Burswood gained 3c or 2 per cent to $1.42 after PBL increased its takeover offer by 6c to $1.46.